Where It All Goes Down
Prague
The Magic Kingdom
The book's epigraph begins, "once upon a time," which conjures up images of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and other dark, twisted fairy tales. (Those Grimm brothers were grim, y'all.) And what's one thing that many of these stories have in common? They take place in some magical city from another time, filled with cobblestones and cathedrals, street performers and fairies.
In this book, that magical setting is the capital of the Czech Republic: Prague. Akiva even describes the metropolis as a "fairy-tale city" (23.1)… and this, from the guy who is basically from another dimension. Prague definitely has an other-worldly quality in Smoke and Bone, especially to us readers who are used to typical book settings, like New York, London, or Forks.
Boring. We want romance and enchantment, cathedrals and cobblestones. In other words, we want Prague.
Still Just Rats in a Cage
In addition to Prague, we spend a bit of time in Loramendi, the capital of the chimaera-verse. When we see it through Madrigal's eyes, there's not much description. Guess she's used to it, given that she lives there and all. But when Karou sees Loramendi, she describes it in all its weird, wonderful detail.
The thing that sticks out most to us is that "the city was banded over by iron bars" (17.8). This raises the question that we always have to ask when seeing a giant cage (which happens all the time): is it for keeping people in, or out?
The people of Loramendi are prisoners of a war-time culture. They're in constant battle with the seraphim, and it's likely that the bars are there for protection against these flying enemies. But they also serve as a sad reminder of the chimaera's general lack of freedom.